Comments for This Is Why You Shouldn"t Interrupt a Programmer
- CChristian Münster @Cpmonster
As a technical person who supports normal people every day, I'm crazy about this strip.
But; normal people dont understand this c=1 stuff.
If you made one with spreadsheets, vlookup in external spreadsheets or similar, something normal people understand.I brought this strip to a sales / economics meetings, debating the use of developers resources.
Not one (normal) person understood this drawing.
As soon as it was explained using spreadsheet and other office related software, they understood right away.Now we have silence in the R/D department.
- DIn reply tosystem⬆:Dan Haiduc @danuker
I believe TDD is the cure for this. It keeps me focused on the next ONE TINY thing to do. And while I code and refactor, the computer enforces that all the constraints from the past are still satisfied.
That only helps if you are in the engineering phase, not the support phase. There are plenty of bugs that need to be fixed no matter how much TDD is done. In theory, fixing a bug may or may not cause a test to fail. Refactoring certainly shouldn't cause that either.
- PIn reply tosystem⬆:Picasso CT @Picasso
We seem to encounter to constantly rise in our missed deadlines. Better check up more frequently on those programmers. After all, management per definition is communication with people, so why cant they have a workload like i do?
- VIn reply tosystem⬆:Voltron
I realize now that the problem is more than just what the cartoon illustrated. When I'm programming I get into this flow state where I'm just jamming, and when someone interrupts you, that state goes out the window and takes a long time to get back.
- SIn reply tosystem⬆:Seema Nair
The red pill always brings me here and I start from 0. Thank you for nicely connecting the dots to the sun project.
- BIn reply tosystem⬆:Chris Walsh @bloodbaz
I suffer from them when someone commes up to ask if I want a cup of tea. I totally can't formulate a response back to them!
- L2In reply toUnknown [DwE4KFYW2]:Lukas Eder
THIS! This is the best rendition I've ever seen of what it feels like. Awesome drawing :-)
- RIn reply toUnknown [DwE4KFYW2]:Robin
Uh, yeah... maybe use a better example than a single-character comparison with a resulting single-command body, like a case of serious programming logic that actually takes some time to get in and out of when being disturbed.
- L2Lukas Eder
Meanwhile, everyone else coming here from HN enjoyed the subtle humour in this strip. But not Robin, the troll.
- FFeng Yue Chong
Lukas Eder, just because Robin's opinion differs from yours it does not mean that he's a "troll".
It makes you look like the boy who cried wolf when you make false accusations like that.
Nobody will take you seriously because of your false alarms, and we will ignore anything and everything that you write.
How does it make him look like the buy who cried wolf dipshit?
WTF are you talking about seriously?Because if he throws the accusation around like confetti it loses its value. Just like the boy who cried wolf, if you use the term when it's not appropriate people will refuse to believe you when it is. I would have thought it was obvious.
Maybe, just maybe, you don't know everything and sometimes the dipshit is you.
- In reply toLukas Eder⬆:
Maybe we should outsource this project to Robin.
- In reply toLukas Eder⬆:B2boy ignoy - Proud Filipino!
Actually, Robin's opinion is intelligent. He was actually suggesting a different rendition of the graphic which for him fits. Ego has to be left behind when we relieve ourselves with stress.. Making negative arguments is not healthy.. Cheers lads! Nice illustration though.. I like it and showed around. Thanks..
- In reply toRobin⬆:F2Fortyseven
Wow, you can almost smell that wet blanket aroma!
- S2Slackergrrl
Haha hahaha. Awesome.
- In reply toRobin⬆:
The point is to show that a simple piece of code can lead to a whole complicated mess of thoughts. It's also easier for non-programmers to understand, which is basically who this comic is mainly for.
- In reply toRobin⬆:
Uh, yeah... maybe use an avatar that doesn't look like a big black cock.
- R3rocketshipman
Its not even a penis. Its a rocket ship duh
- In reply toBen⬆:
The brown is rgb(0x44,0x40,0x36), and the yellow is rgb(0xcd,0xda,0x48). There's no purple. Really, there's two browns.
- In reply toandy⬆:
LOL!! Thanks a lot! Just made me smile for the first time this year! Amazing!!
- A3AINT_NO_BODY_GOT_TIME_FO_MAD
That's sad bro...
- In reply toRobin⬆:B5Blake Petersen
You're so smart, I bet you make friends wherever you go. I am beyond jealous...
- B5Blake Petersen
Replied to Robin, not sure why it's indented for Andy...
- In reply toRobin⬆:
That's the whole point: That even a single, innocuous line can have far reaching and intricate implications. I would make a derogatory comment about your experience not enlightening you that some of the most basic changes require major insight in complex systems, but you've done it for me :(
- In reply toRobin⬆:
I refuse to take 1 bit of advice from some 2-bit troll whose avatar resembles an 8-bit cock
- S5Spanky Quigm,an
That was supposed to be a reply to Richard's original comment, not the t-shirt response. Although I agree, I'd probably buy the t-shirt as well!
- In reply toRobin⬆:J2Jason Gordon
Robin, if this is a joke, it's one of the funniest I've seen. This thread is genius, T-shirt worthy. Hope for ur sake it was a joke!
- R6RathfordTheRude
Are you?
- In reply toRobin⬆:
Because it's easier for the interrupting party to understand
- J4In reply toUnknown [DwE4KFYW2]:Jerome Eteve
And this is why programmers should use YACC
- CIn reply toUnknown [DwE4KFYW2]:Craig
The first stick figure should be wearing headphones. It rarely works, but it's the universal programmer sign for "I'm thinking right now."
Coders often put on headphones to block out the sound from all the other people in the shared office space. To think and not be distracted.
People ignore this, and interrupt them (us) anyway with useless conversation.
It's universal - it rarely works.
- In reply toColeman⬆:
I don't know if you realise this, but two things that are orthogonal are _not_ mutually exclusive.
> 1 of or involving right angles; at right angles.
>
> 2 Statistics (of variates) statistically independent.
>
> • (of an experiment) having variates which can be treated as statistically independent.In other words, X can change without affecting Y at all, so something can be anywhere on the spectrum from universal to not universal and that has no bearing on where it can be on the spectrum from works every time to never works.
- In reply toCraig⬆:
Yep. One time someone came in and quietly stood by my desk until I noticed him. Literally just stood there. I ignored him for a little bit hoping he'd think "oh, Dave's in the zone" but no dice. After pausing my music, removing the headphones, and asking what I could do for him (without sounding as annoyed as I felt), he asked if I got the ticket for a report request he sent moments before getting up to walk to my desk on his way to the break room. A lot of tongue biting was had that day. The sales/marketing staff always seemed to be worse than managers and their impromptu "lightning session status meeting" before they punch out 6 hours into the work day.
- In reply toCraig⬆:
You can augment the headphones with this to improve the disturbance ratio.
- B6In reply toUnknown [DwE4KFYW2]:Bouillon Logic
I've actually had headphones on, chat disabled, and a sign on my desk saying "No Interruptions Please" and **still** had some clown interrupt just to ask how it's going.
- M3In reply toUnknown [DwE4KFYW2]:MadHattr
The link for the PDF is broken. And I need this to show my boss what he's doing every time he pops in for an hourly 'status update'. NEED.
- J7Jason Heeris
I updated the [PDF link](http://ubuntuone.com/0fUnjM... to point to Ubuntu One for now, since my webserver seems to be partially melting down...
- In reply toMadHattr⬆:
Next time he drops by say, "I scheduled two job interviews in the last hour."
- C4In reply toUnknown [DwE4KFYW2]:Carlos Alexandro Becker
Just sent this to my wife. Glad I bought a comfortable couch.
- B7In reply toUnknown [DwE4KFYW2]:Brett Warner
This is missing the final slides where you don't even remember why you were looking at the problem in the first place. Then reflexively chec
click to show - B8In reply toUnknown [DwE4KFYW2]:Bob Spline
This is also unfortunately very true for Infrastructure and network engineers. Oof. HATE being interrupted when debugging network anomalies,
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